Atherosclerosis is one of the major problems for young age death. It is an active process of inflammation and cell proliferation. It starts when normal vascular functions go away. Basically, there is blockage in the coronary artery, which leads to the heart attack. This blockage could be due to deposition of lipid, formation of wound or sudden release of lipid from the endothelial wall due to bursting of plaque. Slow and gradual deposition of fat in the intimal layer of artery is called fatty lesion or plaque. Slowly these fatty lesions get fibrosed and calcium is deposited in it. Initially, it is a reversible process but after fibrosis, it becomes irreversible. In fact, fat deposition in the blood vessel is a natural process with aging, but in some individuals, its rate of formation is significantly high and therefore leads to pathological state of coronary artery disease.
There are several reasons for this deposition. However, the basic cause is considered to be the faulty metabolism of lipid in the body. High cholesterol diet or high level of endogenous cholesterol synthesis in the body is the basic cause of arteriosclerosis. Of course, there are several precipitating factors for this pathology, such as stress, smoking, diabetes, hypertension, age, male sex, family history leading to elevated homocystein, high serum lipoprotein-a and infection with cytomegalovirus or chlamydia. More free radical production leading to rapid oxidation of LDL, followed by the excess uptake of oxidized LDL by the macrophages leading to the formation of foam cells is the basic pathology.